Libra Dohko is one of the oldest Gold Saints in the original Saint Seiya series. As a survivor of the previous Holy War, Dohko’s duty is to watch for the return of Hades, God of the Underworld. Then when Hades is resurrected and his Specters attack Sanctuary, Dohko is one of the remaining Gold Saints that pushes back the advances of Hades’ undead army.

The box for the EX Libra is the usual Saint Cloth Myth EX Pandora box with a glossy sleeve cover.

The design of the Libra Cloth is based on a balance.

The Object Mode for the Libra Cloth is a bit more complicated to put together than your average Saint Cloth Myth’s Object Mode. The reward, however, is worth the extra time. The Object mode is pretty substantial and nice to look at.

The Chinese design of the helmet, which sits at the front, gives the Object Mode a touch of Asian flair.

On each of the scales rest three of the Cloth’s weapons in their compact versions. Both sides of the Cloth are pretty much identical.

The only thing breaking the symmetry of the Object Mode are the shoulder pads on the sides, which are slightly different. It is kind of ironic that the Cloth that represents balance is one of the two Gold Cloths with a bit of asymmetry.

The design of this Object Mode also makes good use of some of the Libra Cloth’s weapons to create a good looking Object Mode, rather than trying to cram every single weapon into the design. This is very faithful to the way the Object Mode appears in the show.

The EX Libra Dohko looks pretty good with his Cloth on. One nitpick that I have with the figure is that in the show Dohko has very defined and square chin. The chin on the toy’s face, however, is rounded and thus missing one of Dohko’s defining features.

Another thing worht noting is that the the slimness of the midsection makes that part of the armor less full.

The slim midsection also makes the sideskirts look bigger and bulkier by comparison to the midsection above it.

From the back you can see several slots on the armor that hold the compact form of a six of the Libra Cloth’s weapons.

Of course Libra needs to be sporting a shield on each arm to be fully suited up… This is where the proportions and faithfulness to the source material are thrown out of whack.

This is due to the fact that the EX Libra Dohko only comes with one pair full size shields that are to be used for everything: for the weapons, for the Object Mode and to adorn the armguards. So the full-sized shields end up being too big for the armguards. In the show, the shields are magically smaller Dohko has them attached to his armguards.

Besides being too big for being an accessory on the Cloth, the shields of the Libra Cloth are also VERY orange. While the shields are orange in the show, in that they are a light golden orange. Instead we got a shiny radioactive orange. This is one of those times that I have to call out Bandai for their false advertisement. Because the pictures on the box clearly show the light golden orange that we should have gotten with the actual product. This means that the photographer either had a prototype toy with the correct colors or that somebody did some fudging in Photoshop before the pictures hit the box. The shield is not the only piece of armro to suffer from incorrect coloring. The orange accents on the shoulder pads and helmete, as well as the san setsukon on Libra's back, and the tonfa are way too orange.

But at least the EX Libra Dohko is still the best iteration of this character.

I will just let the pictures speak for themselves.

As wtih the original release, the majority of the armor is made of metal.

Only the covers for the back of the hands, the helmet, the armor for the midsection and the shields are made of plastic. I am actually glad they made the shields out plastic. Since they failed to make them the correct size, the light weight of the plastic makes it easier to keep the arms in their proper position. Imagine the slender arms of the toy having to support those big freakin' shields made of metal and the weight of the armor for the arms. Those shoulder joints would get very loose super quick!

Okay, now that I am done bitching about the looks of the toy, let’s talk about what it can do.

Even in full armor, Libra Dohko is still pretty poseable. This is all thanks to the way Bandai engineers the armor for the toy. You can even get a good Hyakku Ryu Ha pose out of this toy.

However, the fit of the armor is not perfect. First of all, the fit of the belt over the midsection is super-tight. This means that the body cannot rotate at the bottom of the midsection and will always face the same direction as the waist. But that is not all. On my figure, the hole on the left armguard is slight too big, so it doesn’t hold the shield in properly. The thigh armor has a tendency of moving around a bit. The armor for the biceps just loves to spin around. Finally, the side skirts were engineered in a way that the connection points are at the bottom of the skirt. This means that the skirt armor can easily be nudged upwards and out of place.

So while the fit and finish of the Cloth leaves a bit to be desired, at least the EX Libra Dohko comes through in the extras department, especially the weapons. The person who earns the right to wear the Libra Cloth also has the responsibility of guarding the 12 weapons of the Cloth. Under normal circumstances, Saints are not to use weapons… Unless you are Shun, June, Aioros, Capella, etc.

Anyhow, when a Saint’s fists are not enough to destroy the obstacles that lay before him, then the awesome weapons of the Libra Cloth may be used. That is if the Libra Saint permits the Saint to use the Libra Cloth’s weapons.

The Libra Cloth comes packed with those 12 weapons. 2x Swords

2x Spears

2x Shields

Besides beign able to sport the shields on the armguards, one of the shields can also be attached to the right shoulder pad by removing a little plastic piece that is covering the hole on the shoulder pad.

Also included handle and chain to attach to one of the shields.

This turns the defensive shield into an offensive throwing shield.

The previous three types of weapons are weapons that would have been common during ancient Greek times. The following ones, not so much.

2x Tonfas

2x Nunchaku

2x San Setsukons (Three-section staff)

These weapons are obviously not true to the ancient Greek time period. Instead their inclusion is most likely due to the Asian influence of Kurumada’s upbringing and his years practicing Martial Arts.

The majority of the weapons are made of diecast metal. Only the bottom handles of the spears, the shields in their entirety and one link in each of the San Setsukons is made of plastic.

The decision to include 12 weapons was not an arbitrary one. There is one weapon for each of the Gold Saints. As was mentioned earlier, the Saints can use these weapons during dire times. Which is what happened during the Hades Chapter and several of the Gold Saints had to take up arms in order to push forward in their attack against the God of the Underworld.

Since not all of the EX Gold Saint came with weapon-holding hands, the EX Libra release had to rectify this mistake. Besides Dohko’s 5 sets of hands, this release also comes with 9 other sets of hands. One set of holding hands for each of the previously released EX Gold Saints. One can assume that for the last two releases, the Saint will come with his own hands for weapon wielding.

Sorry for the low quality of this picture. The gallery just couldn't handle the awesome that is 5 Gold Saints together.

Now the real travesty comes in the fact that the Bronze Saints, minus Shun, cannot hold any of Libra’s weapons. Seiya, Shiryu and Ikki, like the Gold Saints, did not include a pair of “holding things” hands. Fans of Saint Seiya will remember that in the show the Bronze Saints were the first to prominently use the weapons of the Libra Cloth. First in the Sanctuary Arc to cut through Aquarius’ frozen tomb and then in the Poseidon Arc to destroy the pillars supporting the seven seas. So it sucks that the EX Bronze Saints have to go weaponless.

Besides all of those weapons and hands for holding them, this release also comes with the signature three piece EX SCM cape, which is attached to a separate armor plate for the back of the toy.

Finally, here are the 3 faceplates and 5 pairs of hands for Libra Dohko that were included in this set.

So as you can see this release comes with a ton of stuff, which is why this release commands a higher price than other Saint Cloth Myth releases. In the end, however, I wanted to like this release more than I did. It is still a fairly good toy of a character that I really like. The fact that Bandai dropped the ball on some of the execution of this toy makes me wonder if the people responsible are just coasting at this point. Maybe they figured that with only 2 Gold Saints left in the EX line, most people who have bought into getting them no matter what. So why bother hitting this one out of the park? I just hope that Taurus and Aquarius bring the quality of the line back up a peg.

Yeow. Bandai's desire to be more original with these toys is getting worse. The EX Cloth looks like it should be a Mariner Scale with that color scheme. Also, the ENTIRE shield is plastic? Weird, I'm pretty sure the standard versions of the shields are only partiality plastic. And I can go ahead and answer why none of the Bronze's can hold the weapons: V2 or Gold V2 versions will eventually come out. How do I know this? Because they releasing Aries Shion as an EX....in the gold armor. In other words, it's a second release of Mu with nothing different except the head and hair. It's even the same color body. Apart from panel in the manga, Gold Shion never appears in the series. If they are gonna release something like that...You know V2 or Gold V2 Bronze figures will appear before too long.

Agreed. They definitely used more orange on this armor than they should have.

I hadn't thought about the fact that they would probably make Power of Gold V2 EX Bronze Saints, but it makes perfect sense. Bandai is going to squeeze out every penny out of each mold. That's Bandai for you. I think I may skip the Gold Shion. I would much rather have him in his Surplice.

I've read almost all (including Atom's reviews). It's odd there being someone from USA who really likes Saint Seiya. It's a kinda old-fashioned show that probably wouldn't seem attractive nowadays.

I've still got in somewhere the old 1987 model of Libra Dohko. It was my first Saint Seiya figure. It's kinda special for me, since when I watched the show in the 90s as a child, I've been given it as a surprise present. Initially, I didn't like it because he hadn't appeared in the show after the first 52 episodes which were broadcasted at that time (and one or two years later, after having seen all the episodes and movies, I found that he didn't show up at all!). However, while I played, I found that he was in fact the coolest figure of all the Gold Saints, even if I didn't know his actual name until I've grown up. It had a lot of parts like no other.

Too bad that the old 1987 models just could not stand up with all the armor pieces at their places easily. Especially Libra, which had a lot of weight! His armor just fell down most of the time. But hey! The figure was actually awesome, since even if he couldn't move so much when he donned his armor, he was articulated as hell! I could move Dohko sans armor to whatever position I wanted. He even had articulated hands (not like nowadays, when you just swap his hands), it was pretty impressing for me. Besides that, the Object Mode was really beautiful. In fact, the Object Mode was the only thing you could call perfectly functional in the 1987 line, since armor pieces rarely fell down from the Objects if compared to the figures.

An interesting thing I recently found about the 1987 Saint Cloth line is that, pretty much like it happened in some other countries, it was released in Japan before the conclusion of the Sanctuary arc on the TV, so even some characters which hadn't been shown up yet had their figures in the stores. You can even find an old picture of Pisces Aphrodite with his eyes blacked out and a different skin tone because of that. It's said that his figure was actually Shun with a different coloration (he even had green hair). Maybe it's also due to that reason that Dohko looked kinda generic in this old line, even in the cover illustration (http://shunete.es/Vintage/images/cdz90/fichas/libra/cajalibra1.jpg).

Unfortunately, I haven't bought any Saint Seiya figures since I was a child. But I still like them, even if I'm not into Saint Seiya as before. This new EX Cloth Myth line sounds like a dream.

Well, sorry for having written such a long text, I just got carried away. I'll be looking forward to reading the review about the new EX Aquarius Camus, if it's possible, since he was another character whose 1987 model I got!

Thanks for the compliments! To explain why I am a big Saint Seiya fan, I spent a few years in Mexico when I was younger.

The EX line is pretty awesome and BIG upgrade from the 80's toys. I too am looking forward to the EX Aquarius because it is my sign and also the last of the Gold Saints to be made in the EX line. Hopefully I can get the EX Hyoga review done before then. I have been pretty busy as of late and the holidays are pretty much upon us.

Anyways, thanks for reading and for sharing your experience with the Saint Seiya toys.